I Can’t Run Away From the Girl Who Saved Me

183 – Sister (7)

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Alice slowly stopped breathing.

It was so painful and distracting to feel the furnace-like heat seeping into my lungs as I inhaled, making them swell with each breath.

It wasn’t just the lungs.

There were already many parts of her body that were not functioning properly.

The pain was unbearable as the intestines boiled over, engraving it on the nerves, and the spine was struggling to support the body that was collapsing due to its flailing.

The skin on his chest had already melted away, exposing his ribs.

The hand holding the sword was shaking like crazy.

Only her arms and legs, located farthest from her heart, were barely functioning, and in reality, she was no longer in a state to fight.

It was a miracle that he was even alive, let alone fighting.

“… after,”

But Alice was satisfied.

If your arms and legs are relatively intact, you can just jump at the enemy and swing your sword.

The fact that death was virtually certain wasn’t a bad thing either.

Because it meant that there was no reason to avoid Maria’s terrifying magic.

Maria stood there blankly, looking at Alice with a blank expression.

If it were Maria, she wouldn’t be making such a stupid face.

After all, it is nothing more than an undead wearing Maria’s shell.

Alice smiled faintly and spoke to her mechanical heart, which she had hated so much.

“Just one more time, just one last time, you fucking piece of scrap metal.”

Alice gathered strength in her legs, the dirt on the ground she had stepped on slightly digging into them.

He forcibly holds onto his pelvis, which is sagging and collapsing, with his divine power and kicks off the ground with all his might in one breath.

Alice’s body flew towards Maria as if it was being shot.

Alice pulled the hand holding the sword toward her chest, moving the tip of the sword toward Maria’s chest.

Maria stretched out her remaining arm towards Alice in a strange gesture and recited the spell.

The surrounding ground was blown away with a huge explosion, and the resulting dust filled the empty lot.

＊

I bit my lip silently as I heard a huge explosion from afar.

It seemed that Sister Alice and Sister Maria had come to a conclusion.

I don’t know who won between the two.

If Sister Maria had subdued Sister Alice, then I would have to kill her myself, but if Sister Alice had won…

We’ll have to recover the bodies of two people.

“… Sister,”

Now there really is no one left.

My longed-for past.

There is no achievement or splendid glory to brag about, but it is a time that is sweet and gentle.

A peaceful time when I would fall asleep with my head down on my desk, then suddenly wake up and watch the tiny specks of dust flutter beautifully in the sunlight streaming in through the cracks in the window.

There is not a single person left in this world who remembers me from back then.

“… Balder.”

“Ugh… Ugh,”

Thanks to this son of a b*tch.

I slowly got up.

Balder, who had been lying beneath me until just a moment ago, was gasping for his last breath on the floor with his stomach open.

As he was running away, she magically tangled his ankles and made him fall, and Pia blocked all the magic and spells he spewed out in his rage.

In the end, Balder never figured out the secret of the spirit drink, and I poured the magic into his abdomen without difficulty.

It was a magic that was easy in theory, but in practice it was so difficult and tiring, but for some reason, it never failed to activate even once at this moment.

It must be something you’ve become accustomed to.

For me, hurting someone with magic is no longer something strange or scary.

Suddenly, as I looked next to the dying Balder, I saw a small puddle of water on the floor.

It was a puddle of water that had formed when Maria’s water pipe burst earlier.

I looked at my face reflected in the puddle.

It might be because it was a dark night and I couldn’t see clearly, but somehow my reflection in the puddle felt so unfamiliar.

“… There really is no one here.”

I realized.

Ash, who had lived buried in books and parchments in the Goldfield Estate, was now nowhere to be found.

I have changed so much now that there is no one left who still remembers my old self.

“Ugh… ugh, ah, ash…”

“Ah, you’re still here.”

“…Kukhuk,”

“I have to say goodbye. To the old me that I can no longer see…”

I closed my eyes for a moment and said a short prayer.

Even I had a hard time knowing who I was praying for and what I was praying for.

After a short prayer of silence, I spoke softly to Pia.

“Pia.”

“huh.”

“I have a favor to ask.”

“say.”

“Go and see Sister Alice. If Sister Maria won… finish her off…”

I said calmly.

Pia seemed worried about my appearance as she spoke hesitantly.

“… Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m okay now.”

“How about the body…”

“… Just leave it. I’ll ask it myself.”

“Okay… Okay.”

Pia nodded slowly and disappeared from my sight in an instant.

I looked down at Balder in silence.

Balder was still glaring at me, not dead yet.

“It’s tough, to the point of being gross.”

His abdomen was a mess.

A large hole was ripped open, revealing the floor, and the intestines were hanging out like a tongue outside the stomach skin.

It was just strange to be alive in this condition.

I observed him carefully, nodded, and said.

“… Oh, I see.”

It must be thanks to Magi that he is still alive.

It seems that Magi has the power to make people forget their pain, and Balder was slowly dying without losing consciousness despite the wounds that would have shocked a normal person several times.

“This is all I got. I sold my family out… I betrayed humanity and the future I got. And all I got was a miserable death like this.”

“Huh… What do you… know…”

“I don’t know, I’m a piece of shit who couldn’t keep Lila, and I couldn’t keep Alice’s sister, but I’ve never been an asshole like you.”

I slowly placed both hands on Balder’s neck.

Actually, there was no need to do this.

Anyway, he is already as good as dead.

But the resentment that still sat heavily in my stomach and the anger that burned in my head forced me to take direct action.

I wanted to kill him with my own hands.

Not with a sword or magic, but with these two hands.

I wrapped both hands around his neck and pressed down hard, centering my crossed thumbs.

Balder groaned and wiggled his bulging abdomen.

“Die, die!”

“Ugh, ugh!”

“It’s because of you, because of people like you, all of it, you!”

It was a strange feeling.

To be honest, I thought it would be unpleasant.

Because of the memory of that day when I tore five innocent men to pieces with my bare hands, I thought that even if he was Balder, it would be a little unpleasant for me to harm him with my bare hands.

But surprisingly, it wasn’t unpleasant.

Rather, it was refreshing.

It was exhilarating, yet I felt a constant surge of new anger.

I grabbed him by the neck and shook him up and down, banging the back of his head on the floor several times.

Gradually, his footsteps became weaker and the pulse he could feel in his fingertips became fainter.

The more I did that, the tighter I grabbed his neck.

Even though both my arms were numb, I put more strength into my grip.

Balder.

My uncle, who betrayed humanity and sacrificed my parents to the Demon King in order to survive, was strangled to death by my hands.

“Huh… gasp,”

I fell backwards, gasping for breath.

My arms and shoulders were shaking.

I slowly pushed off the ground with my feet and sat back down.

Now that I think about it, Sylvia definitely cut off the Demon King’s head, but didn’t she say that the Demon King was still alive?

I slowly took out the dagger Sylvia had given me from my bosom.

Holding tightly to the dagger that had once been used to create Layla’s symbol, I crawled towards Layla and her parents’ enemy.

And then they started slowly carving his body into pieces.

Of course, since a dagger is just a dagger, it can’t cut through the bone like Sister Alice’s Holy Sword or Sylvia’s Longsword, so I just tore his flesh off his bones.

“Ugh… I didn’t think I’d survive after doing this.”

How much time has passed?

Balder’s flesh, bones, and entrails were strewn everywhere.

If these were indiscriminately eaten by wolves, wouldn’t the soul of Layla, who died from the teeth and claws of the beast, be comforted even a little?

I chuckled as I thought about that.

In an area filled with such magic, where would any wild animal eat meat filled with such magic?

I recited the spell in a cracking voice and burned Balder’s corpse.

The dagger, slick with blood and fat, slipped through my fingers and fell limply to the ground.

Almost simultaneously, my body slowly collapsed onto the ground.

I lay on the ground soaked with the blood that had flowed out, looking up at the gaping sky caused by the trees that had fallen on either side of me.

“… I can’t see any stars. Is it because of the magic?”

I was in a state of turmoil.

I finished my revenge, but it doesn’t feel good.

Rather, the frustration only increases.

Just like the pitch-black sky without a single star to guide me, my heart also felt filled with only heavy darkness.

My parents, my sisters Laila and Maria, and my sister Alice.

Everyone who knew me as a child is dead.

I feel like I’ve lost my past self.

Is that why it’s so frustrating?

I took a deep breath.

“Sylvia.”

I wanted to see Sylvia right away.

I wanted to hug her right now.

Although I was in dire need of rest due to fatigue and pain, the real rest I wanted was not sleep, but her arms.

“I have to go to Sylvia as soon as Pia gets back.”

There was no room for delay.

The blessing that Sister Alice gave me only lasted a few hours.

If I can’t defeat the Demon King by then, I will be killed by magic again.

Ha, now that I think about it, I’m not particularly afraid of dying.

But I want to live with Sylvia.

Now that I had lost all ties to the past, all I had left was my daily life with Sylvia.

From the beginning, I had never been so attached to life outside that I had easily accepted living in this forest, but now I really had no regrets.

“If only the magic would disappear, we could continue living in this forest. Just like when we lived in that cabin with Sylvia… together… this time with a child… like that…”

Since I only saw darkness whether I opened or closed my eyes, I closed them and slowly my head began to feel heavy.

I felt like I was going to fall asleep like this.

Of course, I shouldn’t have done that, so I forced myself to get up, but my eyes wouldn’t open.

No, I didn’t want to get up.

I was so tired and exhausted that I just wanted to close my eyes for a little while.

Just like this… just a little bit…

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“Ash.”

“Pia?”

Startled by the sound of someone calling me, I slowly got up.

Judging by his dazed state, he must have dozed off for a moment during that short period of time.

Fortunately, it didn’t seem like a very long time had passed, but I think I must have been asleep for a few minutes.

If I had been careless, I almost ended up sleeping through the morning.

“Oh, sorry… I dozed off for a bit.”

“…”

Pia didn’t say anything.

I turned my head towards Pia.

“Pia?”

“Ash…”

Pia slowly approached me and hugged me tightly.

“Why, why?”

“You look tired… and there’s blood all over your body…”

Pia licked her hand, dipped it in saliva, and wiped it over my face, wiping away the hardened blood from Balder.

It seemed that the smell of the magic soaked in Balder’s blood was too unpleasant to touch directly.

I quietly accepted the instructions that Pia gave me.

After Pia pressed and swept my cheeks with her palms and took her hands off for a moment, I slowly opened my mouth.

“What about Sister Maria and Sister Alice?”

“They’re both dead. That’s for sure.”

“… I see.”

Sister Alice won…

The two people who were together since childhood were together until the end.

Hot tears rolled down the cheeks that Pia had wiped away.

“Sister… Sister…”

Once the tears start flowing, there is no control over them.

At that moment, Pia grabbed my shoulder and shook her head.

“Ash not yet.”

“what…?”

“It might be too early to cry yet.”

“…?”

Pia handed me something as I sat there blankly with a bewildered look on my face.

I accepted the object Pia offered me with both hands.

The object, slightly larger than the palm of one’s hand, was a complex, oval-shaped mechanical device with its interior completely exposed.

The gears and chains surrounding the entire ellipse were slowly turning, still emitting a faint heat and an even fainter white glow.

“… This is?”

“…”

“Oh, no way!”

I could easily guess what the object was.

Heat and brilliance.

“Divine power…”

This was Sister Alice’s heart.

Although it was faint, it was clear that this heart was still beating.

Suddenly, I felt elated.

The dark sigh that had been weighing heavily on my heart until just a moment ago disappeared like the darkness fleeing under the rising sun.

Maybe, just maybe, Sister Alice can come back to life.

Although the goddess cult in the outside world has already fallen into disarray, there must still be sacred shrines or cathedrals left somewhere.

If I could place this heart in a space filled with divine power, if I could inject energy into this mechanical device that is now moving quietly, Sister Alice might come back to life.

As soon as I thought about that, I opened the pocket on my waist, emptied the contents onto the floor, and put Sister Alice’s heart in it.

“Thank you, Pia.”

“Are you awake?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Pia laughed and hugged me.

I said, hugging Pia.

“Now, listen. Here’s the plan.”

“huh.”

“One, catch the Demon King. Two, place the heart in the sacred place. Three, take Sylvia and Alice and return to the Goldfield estate.”

“That’s a great plan. I like the fact that it doesn’t have to worry about tax issues.”

“Haha, you already know from experience, Pia. No matter how much you plan, nothing ever goes as planned.”

“That’s because Ash’s plans don’t always think through the details.”

“Then this is my plan.”

“Yeah, that’s why I like it.”

“Good. Thanks to you, I feel better.”

I let go of Pia and slowly got up.

“Let’s go to Sylvia. To the Demon King’s Castle.”

“Yeah, go… um?”

“Pia?”

Pia stopped dead in her tracks, looking at the objects that had fallen to the floor.

The items that had been in his waist pocket a moment ago were now scattered messily on the floor.

“Pia, what’s wrong?”

“Ash… this.”

Pia bent down and slowly picked up something from the floor and handed it to me.

“What is this?”

It was a necklace.

The necklace of the former spirit sorcerer Malice, saved by Sister Alice.

Maybe it was because it was dark, but I could see it clearly.

The bright blue gem set in the center of the necklace was emitting a blue light.

“… is it shining?”

“Ash… this necklace…”

Pia said in a surprised voice.

“Someone came inside.”

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